Resonance Records is on a roll right now, and this Mingus album just might be their finest release yet. The Lost Album from Ronnie Scott’s, recorded in August 1972, wasn’t quite lost–Mingus always intended to […]
Hallelujah, I have a turntable in the house once more. It’s been months, waiting on my new Technics SL-1210G to arrive, but in the meantime I get to play with the Premium Class entry-level Technics […]
I’m going to review another 2L Recordings release, Alt Hva Modrene Har Kjempet from Kammerkoret Aurum, and I don’t want any shenanigans this time. The last time I covered a 2L Recordings release, the MQA-CD […]
For a while, I didn’t think I’d post another review of a Satoko Fujii release from Libra Records. It’s not because this Japanese avant-garde pianist isn’t my cup of tea–she is. It isn’t because the […]
When you name your ensemble the Cortez/Williams Project, and your new album is called Hermanos, you might think that this is all about two longtime friends, musicians, who finally got enough free time to hang […]
Sometimes I see the structures underneath my contemporary jazz reviews veer toward the formulaic. I realized that when I reviewed the new album from guitarist Juan Carlos Quintero, Table for Five! A casual listen would have […]
These have been prolific times for legendary composer and trumpet player Wadada Leo Smith. Over the last year or so I’ve received so many new recordings from Smith, and we’re not talking single albums. We’re […]
After receiving that half dozen albums from Zoho Music, I’ve realized that this record label is heading off into slightly different directions for 2022. While I’ve applauded the longtime vision of Zoho–using South American and […]
If I drift away from contemporary jazz over the next few months, it will mostly be the fault of these European jazz releases that keep finding their way to my mailbox. For example: Teis Semey […]
Pianist Pete Malinverni and his new album On the Town comes at a time when I’ve already been thinking about Leonard Bernstein. It’s a day after the Oscar nominations came out, and Steven Spielberg’s new […]
This is twice in one week that I’ve reviewed an album that focuses on the idea of the bassist as leader in jazz. With the David Finck album, he was simply an extraordinary bassist who […]
Manisero, from Zoho Music, reminds me a lot of my father who passed away in 2020. He loved all types of classical guitar recordings, was a big fan of Rodrigo and John Williams, and in […]
It’s been a while since I’ve brought up the subject of bassists-as-leaders in the world of contemporary jazz, but I’m seriously pondering it again, the idea that a bass player focuses on foundation and structure […]
One of the reasons I love small jazz piano ensembles so much is that one group can sound so different from another group, even when playing the same standards. I’m not talking about mere improvisation, […]
The best jazz CDs of 2021? Vinyl is the most popular and desirable listening format. Do you agree? When it comes to jazz, that means reissued vinyl of largely dead jazz artists, since the majority […]
I’ll admit that some off my holiday reviews of music for non-holiday people have gotten strange–trust me, I wisely passed on some of the more adventurous music in the review pile because I didn’t want […]
As we’re barreling full-speed into the New Year, I had a thought. If I’m going to include Fred Hersch in my holiday listening choices, I should probably point out that he’s a perfect New Years’ […]
The latest album from Miguel Espinoza Flamenco Fusion, Veneta, might be a harbinger of things to come in 2022. As soon as we got through the bulk of the holidays I sensed something in the […]
Here’s an intriguing coincidence. I just finished the review of Anna Koroleva’s Antigravity yesterday, and today I went to the next piece of music on the review schedule, Feel Again from Elena Maque. These two […]
Saxophone player Anna Koroleva just sent me her new album, Antigravity, straight from Russia. This was probably my favorite part of covering contemporary jazz in 2021, this influx of recordings that have come from places […]
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